[Jigme]

Hi,

I understand the King Eider was seen recently between berths 4-5. How do you access those? Park on the pullout, and buy a passenger ticket? Do I need a scope?

Thank you

Jigme

[revs]

Yes, you need a scope or so i've read.
I'm bummed that it's re-discovery wasn't reported earlier or i would have gone and had a look on Sunday.
I think you can either park your vehicle at the actual ferry parking lot (short time lot) or pay $11 for a shuttle service from the parking lot at foot of jetty to ferry terminal.
I think you can watch from the passenger waiting area but have to leave when passengers board or maybe you have to actually board the ferry or something like that.
Good luck!

[Jigme]

Thank you Mr. Kusmin.

Jigme

[revs]

So, i got out of work this morning and decided to try for the King Eider.
Traffic jams, bridges, tunnels and finally i was at the terminal, parked in short term lot and went and purchased a walk on ticket for a ferry a few hours away from arriving and proceeded to the passenger waiting area and went out onto the outside balconies and checked out bay 3 and 5.
Didn't look good, not a lot of birds.
Did meet a friendly birder from Abbotsford and we looked together until his ferry came in. He was going to take the ferry across and hope for Ancient Murrelet out in open water and hopefully get the eider on the way back.
Good luck to him, i never saw it, and i looked for about an hour.
Saw a couple of other local birders about to take the same ferry across.
$20 and 1 1/2 hours later i was on the way back to the north shore emptyhanded.

[surreybird]

I have been tempted to go too....but wondered about how. Thanks for the pointers

[revs]

There is another male off Stanley park now as well!
The bird report states that the bird i was after was seen yesterday at berth 5 at 8:10am, interesting because i was there at around 8:20am and saw no birds in berth 5, i think the ferry was actually in dock, i didn't have my scope with me so maybe the bird was waay out there, who knows?
I may check out Stanley park instead, much closer to me

[revs]

Checked out Stanley Park seawall between 2nd beach and 3rd beach in the fog, saw a few rafts of birds but no King Eider amongst them despite a few groups of birders looking.
Perhaps the afternoon is a better time if its still around, much better location photo-wise that the ferry terminal, check the bird alert for updates.

[revs]

So, i just read that the Stanley Park Eider was re-located near the Waterfront Seabus station with Surf scoters
Maybe i'll get lucky and will finally get in on the North Vancouver side, gonna check out the area today after work, maybe even Ambleside in West Van is a good bet now that i think about it..

[FYLegend]

No eider by Canada Place this afternoon..

[FYLegend]

Arghhh it wasn't there around 12 but there was a report by 1:30

[revs]

Aarrgh indeed.
I decided to head across the water this afternoon to look for the eider.
I packed my big lens and brought the tripod as well as my bins around my neck.
I started off checking out the Lonsdale waterfront on the way to seabus, did see a handful of surf scoters but no big rafts.
On to the seabus, i snagged a seat up front and put the binoculars to my eyes and scanned the whole trip across.
As the seabus got closer i began to see small and medium groups of scoters fly by from left to right.
All the birds were black, there were no goldeneyes with them, just scoters flying by, that's why i got excited when i spotted a whitish coloured bird with what look like some pink in one of the last groups!
It was the only differently coloured bird in all the groups i saw.
There it was finally! the birds were heading toward Canada Place but i never actually saw the "whitish" bird land, i just knew the scoters were all congregating at the tip of Can Place.
I felt confident enough at the time to report it and later a few birders showed up to look.
Thing is, it was never re-located.
I stood out there with my binoculars glued to my eyes for 3 hours, it was a hungry and cold watch, near the end groups of scoters that had been elsewhere started to rejoin the main group and with every group that would appear in the distance there was intense hope and desire to spot the oddball bird coming in.
Nada.
It was 4:30 and light was starting to fade when decided to give it up for the day, can't say i didn't make an effort by i do feel bad for the birders who came out on my word. In the future i will wait until i have a pic before reporting i guess.
Sigh..
Oh, when i got across to north van i saw a sizable group of scoters off the quay, it was too foggy at that point to check it out and i just wanted to get home.

[FYLegend]

I was at Canada Place until 1 when I went to get lunch and check on Stanley Park, where was another raft of Surf Scoters with Barrow's Goldeneyes but no eider and by 4 I got back to Waterfront after seeing the 1:30 report. The birders there didn't have any luck either...

As an aside there was at least one female white-winged scoter among the raft of surf scoters.

[FYLegend]

Sighting was reported from 8:30 to 10:30. I got there around 12 PM and it wasn't there. There was initially a male Barrow's and White-Winged (I will check my photos but probably juvenile male rather than female). The Surfs kept diffusing around as if something below the dock was freaking them out. At one point a seal surfaced in the middle of the raft and they diffused out in a circle.